From Dusk 'til Dawn
by Edgar Night
Summary: Hyrule is under attack from an enemy she does not know. Gordon and Alyx have no idea where the hell they are. And just what, exactly, is the G-Man doing?
1. It Begins

Disclaimer: ...You people should be familiar with this particular power tool. (Translation: You know the drill.) I'm not Valve, I'm not Nintendo, and eventually I'll get over that fact but for now, don't rub it in. D:

Warning: Those who can't stand canon!mutes or certain ships should just...not bother me with OMGWTFBBQ about how Link can talk and Gordon can talk and Ilia's an annoying...whatever. I value your opinion on the _story_, but I'm _**not**_ changing a ship or how a character interacts with other characters_ just because you have your own little fanon you like to coddle_. Now that that's straightened out... onward to the actual story! ^.^

Not-sure-what-the-classification-of-this-bit-is: Beta'ed by the lovely Kathryn Shadow. You should give her cookies. They're edible hugs, you know.

* * *

From Dusk 'til Dawn

1

It Begins

This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper.

-TS Eliot, _The Hollow Men_

Midna lingered on the edge of the rock on which her palace, her home, stood. Her long cloak floated on the gentle wind. She looked around at the black flakes of twilight as they fell gently, the way snow fell in—

_No_. Midna cursed herself for that flash of sentimentality. It had been more than a year since she had left the world of light. More than a year since she had said her goodbye. To ground herself in the present, Midna closed her fiery eyes and inhaled the warm smell of home. She had missed the scent during her involuntary vacation in the other realm; the sweet blend of old parchment and exotic spices.

"Mm..."

Midna allowed herself to savour the moment for a few more seconds before turning back to re-enter the palace. She had stepped outside for some fresh air during a pause in a rather long, unpleasant meeting with some snobby merchants from a far-off part of the realm, and it was time to return to said long, unpleasant meeting. Her mouth twitched in displeasure, but that was life. Her subjects gave bows and murmurs of admiration, and Midna grinned in reply. Her people. She would really never cease to love them, even if some of them were a bit...dim. Her Hylian companion's only experience with her people was her, the dumb ones, and a freakishly insane pseudo-ruler who literally acted like a monkey. The poor boy never realised the depths of the Twili's brilliance...

_NO._

The twilight princess delivered herself a mental slap to the face. Just as Midna was about to cross the threshold and enter the palace, a blinding flare of light struck her eyes. She let out a hiss through her teeth as she shielded her vision. Yelps of surprise and discomfort rang in Midna's small ears. That sound hurt almost as much as the light itself.

When the flash ended, Midna lowered her arms...

...and saw a very frightened-looking man, eyes screwed shut, in a black and orange suit of armor and rectangular spectacles. Midna tilted her head, blinking, and reached out to him, but just like that, he was gone.

~—~

Link lay on the hill where the goats had been grazing only an hour before and watched the sun's descent. He smiled at the array of colours in the sky, the softness of the grass, the sheer glory of it all. The breeze playfully lifted a few errant strands of hair across his face. A sigh drifted past his parted lips as he let his hands sweep across the soft, springy grass, careful to avoid those small, odourous evidences of the animals' presence. He would have to clear those up before the next day's grazing. Ah, joy.

Azure eyes reflected the last beams of sunlight, and a pair of strong, rough hands reached behind a blond, hatted head to act as a pillow. Contentment spread across the Hero's tanned features. The sun was setting, the trees had exploded with red, yellow, and orange, the weather was perfect.

And he was going to ask Ilia to marry him. Link had gained Mayor Bo's approval—amidst a deluge of comments of a nature that made the Hero wish he could hide under a rock—and blessing. He had everything planned out. He would take her on a horseback ride to Lake Hylia, stand by her as they looked across the tranquil waters, and...mm. A thrill of joy ran up Link's spine, and a wonderful warmth spread in his chest.

Link sat up, straightened his tunic, and stood to his feet. He brushed himself off and stretched, then headed for the stable. He wanted to make sure the goats had what they needed for the night. The creatures inside were weary and lethargic-looking, which certainly wasn't shocking.

The violet-cloaked merchant, however, was.

Link backpedaled and fell swiftly onto his backside. The man who had appeared in the goats' housing was half a head taller than Link, had high, pronounced cheekbones, and held himself like he owned the whole of Ordona Province. Judging from the rich quality of the stranger's garb, Link wouldn't have been surprised if the man _did_ own at least one town.

The stranger had an unnerving stillness to him, and there was a harsh coldness to the man's sunken ice-blue eyes that only added to the unsettling aura that surrounded him. The Hero of Time looked into those eyes, and the eyes looked into him. The Hylian shivered.

Several beats passed, followed by several more, before the man spoke.

"Hero of...Time. This meeting has been a long...time...in coming."

Link's eyes widened, and he took several crabwalk steps backward. How did this man know who he was?

The man brushed imaginary dust from his cloak, and a smirk tugged at his thin lips. "I see...you are con_fus_ed. You are right to wonder, Hero. Who is the...man in your stable?" The stranger's voice was just nasal enough to irritate Link, not to mention unbearably patronising. Link had a sudden urge to stab the man.

The merchant spoke Hylian in the same manner Link would expect from a grand, snobbish nobleman, with one exception. His Hylian was spoken as though he wasn't completely sure what Hylian actually sounded like. Every few seconds or so, hesitation furrowed the man's brow. Not the hesitation of anxiety or doubt—the hesitation that had plagued Link as he asked the mayor for Ilia's hand—but the hesitation of knowing the power of a single properly chosen word.

A sigh from the man broke the silence, and the stranger twisted his neck ever so slightly, as if to take care of a crick. "You, of all people," the man continued, "know how the acts of the... few... dictate the future suf-fer-ings of the...many."

Link nodded mechanically, still on his rump.

"Events have been set in mo-tion that can-not be...reversed. Prepare... yourself, Hero." The man lifted his eyebrows, as if expecting Link to have a clue what he was talking about.

_Who are you?_ Link thought. Then he balked.

There on the pack slung over the stranger's right shoulder, visible as the sun on a cloudless day, was embroidered a simple symbol. The thread was gold, a sharp contrast against the deep brown of the pack itself. The man _was_ a merchant, wasn't he?

Why was there a Triforce on his bag? How did a_ merchant _know of the Triforce in the first place?

The man let out an amused "heh", and turned away from Link. He seemed to be intent on walking into the opposite wall, but when he was arm's length from it, he paused and lifted his left hand, fingers curling around the air.

"Oh," he said, head tilting back and to the side as if he had noticed something utterly fascinating in the rafters. "Con-grat-ulations on your upcoming...celebration."

As Link's jaw fell open, the man took two more small steps forward and—surely Link's eyes deceived him—faded from existence. The Hero's mouth formed a comical _O_ of disbelief.

_How on Earth—?_

~—~

After the first flash of green light, the scientist just shut his eyes and threw his arms over his face in an attempt to defend both himself and his sanity. One nightmarish memory was bad enough, wasn't it?

Oh, crap.

When he thought it was safe to open his eyes, there were more...whatever those things were. Except they were an utterly different—yet equally petrifying—variety of whatever. Oh, dear God, what had he gotten himself _into_?

Just like that, though, it ended, and the flustered, terrified scientist was back in the test chamber, shaking like a rabbit in winter. For a moment, the poor man merely stood where he was, transfixed by the erratic bolts of electricity shooting in every direction. He eventually jolted himself into awareness and ran for the exit...

...where he found his colleagues, dead and splattered with blood.

_Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God..._

The scientist stared at the corpses for several long seconds. He took in the manner in which they gazed up at the ceiling, the tension in their muscles that remained even in death, and the horrific sight of them lying in their own lifeblood. He soon felt his knees weaken. His eyelids slid closed behind his thick-rimmed spectacles, and the unfortunate man let instinct take over.

Gordon Freeman doubled over, clutched his abdomen, and vomited. The acidic taste of bile and that morning's Wheaties filled his mouth, and he could tell that some of the fluid had dribbled onto his goatee. Still he kept his eyes shut, unwilling to look at the bodies of his fellow scientists and dear mother of Tesla, he felt sick just thinking about—oh, God.

He threw up again.

Stomach sufficiently empty, Gordon supposed there was no longer a risk to opening his eyes. He did so. Before bolting full-speed out of the wrecked control room, he extended his hand and lowered the two men's eyelids, equal parts reverence and nausea in the action. He ran for the door, only to find it was firmly shut and locked with a retinal scanner.

_D—n it!_

Gordon stared at the door in consternation for several moments, as if glaring at it would frighten the thing into opening, and just as he was ready to kick the glass, a bolt of the green lightning shot at the door, barely missing him. It effectively blasted the thing open.

After inhaling deeply, Gordon Freeman steeled himself and stepped into the now-ruined mess that was the Black Mesa Research Facility.

~—~

...What was his name again?

Oh, right, that information had been erased years ago. The prisoner was sure that the automatic confusion that grew in his mind like an amnesiac dandelion whenever he woke up from the simulated sleep his captors forced on him would cease...eventually. Groggily, the prisoner stretched his limbs as far as his spatiotemporal cage allowed. Said cage looked plain enough from the outside; a cylinder of pulsating blue light, a collection of electrodes attached to his shaved crown, and old-fashioned bars were all that seemed to keep him incarcerated. The blue light was a lovely invention his captors had, in fact, stolen from his own people. Why in heaven's name his people had felt the need to invent a micro-prison that could have the speed of all actions inside quickened or slowed on the whim of anyone who knew the controls was beyond him. There was an added accessory that had not previously been part of design of the spatiotemporal cage—every few minutes, electricity pulsed through the prison, his captors' attempt at forcing docility.

He let them think it worked.

The brainwash that had caused this and every other awakening's confusion had occurred several years before he had learned to defend his mind against his captors'... shenanigans. The prisoner pulled a face at the memory of the imagination his captors had shown in their methods of wiping him and bleeding him dry. These days, of course, they barely troubled him. Naturally, a mischievous soldier or two would come every so often to torment him for a few hours, but that happened less and less now. They even let him outside occasionally if it was nice out. The feckless numbskulls were too busy terrorising the fledgling planet that—much to his chagrin—_he_ had introduced them to.

The prisoner's left eyelid twitched in irritation. He frustrated himself sometimes. _That,_ he reminded himself, _wasn't your doing, any more than—_

"**Wake up.**"

The prisoner rolled his eyes at the garbled voice's command. Surely his neural readings displayed that the pitiful excuse for a rest he had had was now over? The order was so asinine that he felt no need to grace it with a reply. A door across the chamber in which his cage stood opened, and in strutted a trio of the red-eyed Cyclopes known as Elites.

_Glad to know I'm still threatening enough to merit such a...special guard_, the captive thought with a warm twinge of smugness.

"**The Citadel has—**"

—_blown up, just as planned_, the prisoner thought with a mental smirk. _Also, I saw it with my own eyes, you... ah, well, I have choice words for single-digit-IQ grunts like yourselves. Intellectually surpassed by amoebas, these sort_.

"**Subject is fully alert.**"

Here the prisoner finally let out a very audible sigh of exasperation. He could only take so much idiocy in one five-minute period. Did it really take so long for these pebble-brained thugs to realise he always became "fully alert" within milliseconds of regaining consciousness? The Elite heard the sound, was displeased, and pressed a small green button set into the wall.

When the prisoner had first come, he had assumed that button was a light switch.

"Hngh...ah...hah...angh..."

He had been wrong.

Low groans turned to small yells. Yells turned to screams. And the most exquisite agonies ravaged the prisoner's being as pulse after pulse after pulse of electricity coursed through his body. The screams grew louder. The prisoner's muscles betrayed him and he began to thrash in his prison.

And still he screamed.

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A/N: In retrospect, the timeline of this chapter makes little to no sense whatsoever. Feel free to hate me for that, because I'm not apologizing; it was on purpose. -evil grin- I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of...

...well, I'm really not at liberty to say. :D

In the meantime, leave your thoughts and I'll see you lovely people later. -waves-


	2. Wounded Worlds

A/N: Oh, come now! Shouldn't you people know this already? D: I'm not Valve. No, I'm not Nintendo, either. AND AS SUCH, I DON'T OWN ANY OF THIS. -cries-

On a shinier note, this was beta'ed by the wonderful Kathryn Shadow. ^_^

From Dusk 'til Dawn

2

Wounded Worlds

There is no way out or round or through…It is the end.

—H.G. Wells

Ilia rubbed foreheads with Epona. By Farore, she was a sweet horse. The young girl had to wonder sometimes how Link could bear to overwork the majestic mare, or cause her injury. Epona didn't seem to mind much, though, so Ilia usually let it slide. Sometimes, though, he just went too far, and she needed to chastise him. A small smile danced on her mouth. Other times, she just felt a need to give him trouble. The mare seemed to hear the human's thoughts, and let out what sounded very similar to an amused snort. Ilia laughed back.

"You think he deserves it, too, huh?" she grinned.

Epona paused and then shook her head.

"Oh, come on," Ilia said with mock exasperation. She took a step back, Ordon Spring's water sloshing around her ankles, and placed her hands on her hips. "You know he does."

If Epona had eyebrows, she most certainly would have raised them in the most dubious manner possible. Ilia sighed.

"He doesn't let you rest, and he attacks cuccoos for no apparent reason!"

Epona let out a noncommittal sound that Ilia wasn't entirely sure how to classify. The mayor's daughter rolled her eyes melodramatically and shook her head.

"You agreed with me more when you were a foal," she said. "Oh, well." Ilia bent down and ran her hand up the horse's strong legs, checking for any sign of further carelessness on Link's part. After she determined that, for once, Link had been a good boy and done nothing harmful to the faithful mare, Ilia stood back up. "Ready to head back, Epona?"

The horse snorted an affirmation, and Ilia began to lead her back to Ordon, speaking softly to her animal companion as they walked.

"So," Ilia said. "Father's been acting…odd these past three days. Especially tonight, at supper. He kept chuckling for no reason and when I asked why he'd just wink. I'm getting a bit annoyed, Epona. I don't like it when people keep secrets, and I'm sure it's not just some new joke Rusl told him, or anything like that. Any thoughts?" The mare refused to voice an opinion. Ilia shrugged and continued. "I guess we'll just find out when we find out, huh?"

Ilia's mouth continued to wander, but luckily her feet knew the way back to town. The children ran around like the monkeys they antagonised, as usual, while the adults finished the very last of the day's work. Uli lit lanterns and torches, her baby daughter happily dozing in inside the sling across her mother's back, and her son, Colin, helping Uli in any way he could. The blond boy quickly noticed Ilia, and waved energetically, a broad grin on his soft, round face. Ilia grinned back and waved in reply.

"Link's still at the ranch," Colin called.

"Thanks," Ilia replied.

Colin bobbed his head, blond locks bouncing up and down his forehead. He returned to helping his mother, while Ilia headed for the ranch with Epona.

~—~

Link slowly walked out of the stable, a frown etched into his brow. Who was that merchant? Why did he have the symbol of the goddesses on his pack? _How had he vanished like that?_ Link massaged his forehead and wished his experiences with dark magic had ended after the death of Ganondorf. Just when he thought his life had gone back to being peaceful—

"Link?"

Ilia! Link felt his spirits rise, and he let his brooding thoughts vanish faster than even the merchant had. He ran up the hill and embraced her. He could hear an _oof_ bound from her mouth as he enfolded her in his arms, but only a second later her own arms were wrapped around his neck and her head nestled into his shoulder. Link inhaled through his nostrils; the lavender scent of Ordon's healing spring lingered in the strands of Ilia's golden-brown hair.

"Hello to you, too," Ilia laughed, voice muffled by the fabric of his tunic.

"Mm," Link replied, burying his nose in her hair. He heard an equine snort—of course Ilia had brought Epona along.

_Amused, are you?_ he thought, wishing for a moment that he was in his wolf body so he could speak to the mare directly.

Link and Ilia stood that way, his hands pressed gently against her back and hers against his neck, for what may or may not have been an eternity. He inhaled the scent of her hair; she inhaled that of his tunic. Ilia's delicate fingers trailed up and brushed through the slightly sweaty dirty-blond locks that peeked out from underneath his long cap. Life was good.

The sound of explosions crashed in the distance.

…Life may not have been so great after all.

~—~

After several long, grueling hours of electrocution and multiple blows to various already-bruised areas of his body, the prisoner was alone again. His captors had discovered his latest successful attempt at removing himself from their clutches, and had futilely tried to determine what he had gotten up to during his brief period of "freedom". He did not appreciate being pestered about what he did on his…field trips, thank you very much. It was their fault for not looking after him when they let him see the sun. Anyhow, it wasn't as if he was stupid enough to leave any evidence to support his captors' theories. He was better than _that_.

He noted dully that the bars surrounding the spatiotemporal micro-prison—why had his people never thought to abbreviate that, anyway? —had begun to sink into their sockets beneath the floor. Ah, they were letting him exercise. The electrodes pulled away from his scalp with an acute sting the prisoner deemed highly unnecessary after all the abuse he had already suffered. The prison's light faded and its antigravity controls switched off. The prisoner promptly fell to the floor with a painful _thunk_ as his knees connected with cold steel.

Without the insulation of his micro-prison holding, absorbing, and reusing his own body heat, which elevated the temperature within the prison with each passing hour, the prisoner instantly felt the cold of the outer chamber hit him like a strike to the face. A rebellious shiver shook his emaciated body, and his semi-atrophied muscles refused to lift him from the floor. He shivered where he had landed, in a crumpled, degraded heap on the floor. His mind screamed obscenities in obscure tongues, cursing his captors for doing this to him.

Ye gods, he hadn't realised how little he had consumed on his last trip to the outside. Funnily enough, sites of massive explosions didn't have many great restaurants in the surrounding areas. Had he been part of the redesigning of that miserable planet, he would've at least put a small sandwich shop near the massive tower. His lower organs bemoaned their emptiness at an uncomfortably high volume. The prisoner had no doubt that his captors had heard the sound—there were miniscule cameras in every area surrounding his, ah, quarters.

He had long ago learned all the blind spots.

Aha. Sure enough, only a moment after his gut made its complaint, a clear tube snaked out of the wall in front of the prisoner, end capped with a steel dome. A groan crawled out of his throat as he extended an arm to begin his journey to sustenance. Pulling himself along and feeling very caterpillar-like, the prisoner eventually made his way to the hose-like apparatus. He lifted a shaky hand, undid the latch on the dome, which opened the end of the tube, and pulled it to his mouth. Cracked, dry lips wrapped around the rim, and he waited impatiently for—_gagh!_

A half-liquid concoction of necessary proteins and nutrients spewed into his mouth and down his throat, choking him for a moment. He swallowed greedily, ignoring the slimy texture and sour taste. The "soup" slid down his esophagus and into his waiting innards, and he could hear the _thwup _of the foul stuff hitting the bottom of his empty stomach, sloshing against the walls with every swallow.

His tongue rejoiced when the last of the fluid slid down his rapacious throat, while his still-dissatisfied gut choked back a digestive sob. Feeling considerably less weak, the prisoner unlatched his mouth from the tube, licked his lips, and stood. Had anyone in the complex been paying attention, they would have noticed a sudden departure of the prisoner from the chamber's cameras. He slipped into a blind spot, knelt down, and closed his eyes.

His hands traced abstract square patterns in the air, while his mouth moved silently, whispering words of a tongue eons forgotten by the ears of most races. The prisoner shoved the grim nostalgia that spread through his mind back into the corner, where it belonged.

Dead.

They were all dead.

The screams….

The pain….

Good grief, the wretched itching.

The prisoner paused in his work to adjust the thin bands around his wrists, sliding them further up his arms so they would stop causing his hands to itch, and resumed. The memories had almost been erased just before his captors had finally deemed his brainwashing over. Almost. But as soon as the procedures and reverse-therapy sessions had ended, his mind had begun to scream again. And now, years upon years upon centuries after he had completed the last stage of his mourning, after ages of training his mind to absorb the chill of indifference, here he was, with the wretched memories still alive and raging in his head.

More than anything, his arms remembered the feel of comrades' corpses; the weight of them as he laid them to their final rest before departing for his new life in bondage. His feet remembered those last shackled steps away from his home. The fires that had ravaged his planet still burned in the back of his mind.

~—~

Elon yawned and shifted his helmet so that it sat at least somewhat more comfortably on his head. His shield tugged down heavily on his arm, and his armour was far too large for him. He shifted awkwardly on his feet, wondering how many of his fellows were secretly snickering at him behind their hands.

_Hand-me-downs_, he thought bitterly. Elon wished his older brother, Kel, wasn't so blasted beefy. The elder was more than two heads taller than the younger, and his shoulders a good handbreadth wider on each side.

The young guard rubbed his itching nose with the back of his spear arm and, upon noticing that his captain was looking at him with raised eyebrows, promptly saluted with vigour. Satisfied that the Elon was in fact paying attention to his surroundings, the greying captain nodded gruffly and continued patrolling the grounds. Elon let out a small sigh of relief.

He sometimes wished that he had joined the guards a few years ago, when actually exciting events occurred around the castle. Kel had been part of the guard back then, and had seen the creatures from the darkness enter the gates and barge into Her Majesty's throne room. Naturally, Kel had been in hiding when the creatures entered, but he had seen it, and never hesitated to exclaim about it if anyone came anywhere close to asking. Elon had eaten up those words of terror and excitement, and had entered the guards as soon as he was old enough, just to get a taste of that thrill. Kel, who had in fact been ejected on charges of extreme cowardice, had happily given his little brother the ill-fitting armour.

Naturally, anything even close to excitement had died within the first few months of his entry. He hadn't even gotten to see Her Majesty's coronation. Elon sighed again. Life just had to get boring as soon as it got exhilarating, didn't it?

A rumble shook the ground. Elon clutched his spear, bending his knees to lower his centre of gravity. Sweet Din, an earthquake! Elon's heart pounded behind his sternum, equal parts terror and elation racing through him. The only problem was that he didn't know how to deal with an earthquake. They just didn't happen often enough in Hyrule for his parents to feel a need to inform him of…well, anything. His captain barked orders at everyone, saying that their first priority was their duty to protect the Queen. He sent a dozen soldiers to the throne room to see after the safety of Her Majesty.

Elon's heart leaped as he heard his name called out as part of the twelve.

He and his eleven fellows—only two of which he knew by name, but he could sort that out later—rushed in practiced formation to the inside of the castle, navigating its winding corridors and staircases with well-trained feet. Elon's helmet bounced against his head, but he neither noticed nor cared. He was thrilled beyond words or thought.

The throne room was vast, and out in the open air. Central Hyrule's year-long mild climate allowed for the centre of government to be at the top of a castle, in a room without windows, and thick curtains could be dropped in the event of heavy rain. High above the actual throne, stone figures of the three great goddesses, Din, Farore, and Nayru, encircled the granite block in the shape of three stacked triangles, clutching the structure protectively. Elon swallowed, looking up at the three goddesses reverently.

Below the stony gaze of the holy triad was the throne, and on it sat the head of Hyrule's government. Queen Zelda's expression was one of deep concentration and mild irritation.

"The captain sent you all up here to protect me, then?" she said, a smirk lightening her grim countenance.

A tall guard—Elon thought his name was Caid or something like that—stepped forward. "That is correct, my lady."

The Queen chuckled. "I can defend myself, but I do not turn down assistance. Tell me, what do you think is happening out there?"

"A—an earthquake, my lady," Elon piped up, voice small and pitiful in comparison to his companion's low, rumbling tones.

"And what gives you cause to think so?" Queen Zelda inquired.

"…The ground is shaking beneath our feet, my lady," Elon replied, confused. "What else could it be?"

"It is not the ground that shakes," the Queen corrected. "It is the sky."

Here the entire collection of guards either blinked in bafflement, tilted their heads, or allowed their jaws to drop.

"Did you think to look up when you felt the tremors?"

None of the guards could say they had.

"Kindly do so."

Elon was the first to dart to the outside and stare into the skies. He trembled and felt his knees go weak. As he fell, unashamed but starkly terrified, to his knees, he whispered a fearful prayer to the goddesses.

Raging in the sky, as far as the eye could see, was a massive thunderstorm, the likes of which Elon had never seen in his life. Thunder rumbled, lightning crashed from the angry grey clouds, and a whirlpool of light surrounded each bolt as it struck the ground. There was no rain, but there was noise. So much noise. Each strike of the strange lightning caused a deep rumble in the ground, and those rumbles rattled the bones of everyone in the throne room.

"That's not normal," whispered one of Elon's comrades.

"Indeed it is not," Queen Zelda said softly. "The nature of this storm concerns me deeply. I have never seen anything of its kind, and although I've sent several scribes to search our records to see if our history has seen such, I highly doubt they will find anything." She stepped up behind the twelve, and Elon could hear her thin sword scrape gently along the stone floor. She sighed. "Do any of you have any possible idea what this is?"

* * *

A/N: If anyone's confused about the queenliness of our dear Zelda, there was evidently a set of…cards, I think it was? Anyway, there was a second, non-game source that is in fact considered canon, which I learned about through the magic of Zeldapedia, which states that around the time that Twilight Princess was set, Zelda was only a few days away from being crowned queen. Considering this is two years post-TwiPri... well, you know. Three cheers for Queen Zelda!

Oh, and...erm...the next chapter is...nyergh. -curls into a ball-


	3. The Cataclysm

A/N: You already know about my non-ownership, so I'm going to ramble at you! Okay, so last night, I was wandering rather aimlessly through the wonder that is Combine OverWiki—I love that site so much I could snog it—and I was looking through the chapter guide of Episode Two.

Guess what lovely Easter egg it decided to show me? Go on, guess. Can't? -grin of smug-

THERE IS A DHARMA LOGO. IN HL2:E2. THERE IS A FRAKKING DHARMA LOGO. ON A WALL. IN WHITE FOREST. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! :D :D :D

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!1/SLASH!1 -runs in circles and falls over-

Beta'ed by Kathryn Shadow. ^_^

From Dusk 'til Dawn

3

The Cataclysm

Noble souls, through dust and heat,

Rise from disaster and defeat

The stronger.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, _The Sifting of Peter_

Zelda frowned at the sky, brushing a lock of light brown hair from her eyes with her free hand, adjusting the weight of her sword in the other. She had always believed she was prepared for anything. The cataclysm occurring outside had triumphantly proven her wrong with its first crash of unnatural thunder. She couldn't help but be rather irritated with the storm.

"Really," she said, in response to the guards' collective silence. "I value the opinions of any who will offer them. Give me your thoughts."

The guard who had dashed out first, the little one in the ill-fitting armour, spoke up timidly. "The work of sorcery, my lady?"

Zelda nodded, all too aware of that possibility.

"C-could it be the work of the creatures from the darkness, my lady?" asked the small guard.

_The Twili? _"How do you know of those?" asked Zelda, not allowing her disbelief to creep into her voice. The boy couldn't possibly be old enough to have been part of the guards when Zant had taken hold of the castle.

"M-my brother told me about them," stammered the boy. "My lady," he added.

That made much more sense. "No, I don't think it's them," she replied, thinking of how Midna had shattered the gateway between the worlds.

"Are there any known sorcerers in the land, my lady?" asked another guard, tilting his head ever so slightly.

Zelda's mind ran down the list of known magicians in the kingdom, none of which were adept enough to cause a disaster of this scale. "None that could cause this," she murmured. _Not even __**I**__ could cause this_, she added silently.

"Forgive me, your majesty, if I am impertinent," said one of the other guards, "but do you know if the land's alchemists have done anything that would merit consequences of this sort?"

"The alchemists?" Zelda repeated.

"Yes, my lady," the guard affirmed. "My…my uncle is among them, you see."

"And has he informed you of any activities that may cause anything like what you see outside?"

The young man shuffled awkwardly. "No, but…"

The rest of the guards turned their attention to him.

"He's been awfully secretive these past few weeks, my lady," the guard said, voice suddenly soft.

Zelda didn't often look into the activities of Hyrule's alchemists. They were small in number and usually dabbled in petty tricks that were rather an embarrassment to the trained enchanters of the realm. She frowned. Obviously she needed to be more careful.

"Go down below and call for one of them," she commanded.

"My lady?"

"Call for an alchemist. Say his Queen seeks audience and that it would be unwise, to say the least, to refuse to come up here."

"Which one of us, my lady?" asked the small one.

"Since you seem so eager," Zelda said with a small smile, "you."

The blue eyes behind the over-large helmet bulged. "_Me_?"

"Yes, you."

The young man jumped to his feet. "Yes, your majesty!" he exclaimed with a proud salute. He practically bounded down the stairs, on his way to obey the youthful Queen's command.

~—~

Rien swore under his breath as the shrimp in the stupidly large armour knocked on the iron door, causing him to jump and drop a glass phial, which then shattered on impact with the floor. Green vapours wafted up from the clear liquid that spilled out of the broken glass, drifting to Rien's nose with the smell of rotten fruit. Here he was, trying to fix what his idiot comrades had done, and what happened? The last ingredient of his bubbling brew had crashed to the ground and been destroyed. The contents of that phial could take hours to replicate! Stupid boy.

"What?" Rien barked angrily.

"The Queen sent me!" said the young guard with an overly proud air.

Rien growled incoherently and stormed towards the door, yanking it open. "_What_?" he snarled.

"She wants to see you," the guard replied, unfazed.

"Tell her to wait a minute," Rien grumbled. "I have reparations to make."

"Sir?"

"_WHAT?_" Rien roared.

Here the young man did shrink a little. "…She…she said it would be unwise to refuse."

"Well, it would be '_unwise_' not to let me finish this," snapped Rien.

"If it's not too much to ask—"

"It probably is."

"—what is it you're finishing?"

Rien ran a hand through his thinning black hair. "Have you seen the skies?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

"Yes, sir."

"Then you bloody well know what it is I'm finishing!" yelled the alchemist, returning to his work.

"But sir—"

"_What?_"

"—what can you do?" whispered the boy. "The skies…the…the _skies_! It's horrible outside, sir."

"Yes, I can tell that from the way the ground's been shaking beneath me for the past half hour."

The boy withered slightly. He looked around the alchemist's chamber. "Sir?" Rien turned to look at the young guard. "Where are the other alchemists?"

"Dead," Rien grunted bitterly.

"How?"

"I had to do it," Rien said, voice dropping close to a whisper.

Rien could tell the boy had gone pale behind that clownishly huge helmet. "You killed them?" he croaked.

"I had to," Rien said bitterly.

"But why?"

"Because they were dead already, that's why!" shouted Rien. "Do you want to see the bodies?"

"…Sir?"

"_Do you want to see the bodies_?" Rien repeated, voice low and dangerous.

The boy gulped and nodded slowly. Rien sighed and beckoned for the youth to follow him to the back room of the cellar in which, until only a few hours before, the clustre of alchemists had lived and worked. The last alchemist shivered at the memory of the past few hours.

. . .

_Rien of Eldin walked into the cellar, green cloak flowing, if he said so himself, rather majestically behind him. His sharp grey eyes adjusted easily to the dim light, and his eavesdropping ears heard the sound of a hushed argument not far from where the largest cauldron stood. Intrigued, Rien crept towards the sound of the voices, one of which was that of his friend Mal, the other completely unfamiliar to the Kakariko-born alchemist. Mal's voice was heartily annoyed, while the stranger's was calm, composed, and betrayed not a hint of frustration with the stubborn Mal. _

"—_and who are you to pretend to know of our work?" hissed the alchemist._

"_You will find I am quite…knowledgeable about such things," answered the stranger._

"_You're a petty merchant, purse fat with rupees you did not earn," retorted Mal._

_The stranger chuckled. Rien walked closer to the conversation. _

"_And what's so funny?"_

"_For one who…professes to be so…wise," the stranger said, "you are immensely…thoughtless."_

"_How dare—"_

"_Easily."_

"_Were you not under the protection of Her Majesty, I would strike you," grumbled Mal._

"_How…for-tun-ate for me," said the stranger._

"_I may strike you anyway."_

"_All I ask is that you…use…it." The stranger's tone had become one of menace._

"_And why should we?" cried Mal. "We don't know what it is you're giving us! For all we know—"_

"_And if it is under orders from the…Queen?"_

_Rien's interest piqued. The Queen? What interest could the Queen possibly have in their work? He heard Mal swallow. _

"_I—I—"_

"_Shall I take that…as a yes?" asked the stranger._

_Rien peered around the wall that blocked his vision to see Mal's tight-lipped nod. He stepped out from the shadows and finally saw the stranger for the first time. _

_A set of half-interested, pale blue eyes turned to observe Rien, sunken eyes circled with mottled black, with pupils that seemed far too small for the dim light. Rien's own eyes traced the high, pronounced cheekbones, the smooth black hair streaked ever so slightly with grey, the thin mouth pressed shut with the barest trace of annoyance. The stranger was garbed in opulent clothes that seemed somehow odd on the calm, still man. _

"_I do not believe we have met," said the stranger, eyebrows lifting slightly._

"_Indeed we haven't," Rien replied, admittedly rather annoyed with the stranger for halting the morning's work so insolently, never mind the orders of the Queen. He shoved a hand towards the man. "Rien."_

_The man shook Rien's hand but offered no name in reply._

_One of the acolytes took a small, yellow stone from Mal. He walked to one of the cauldrons began to work on it. The strange man walked away from Mal and out of the cellar._

_That was when all hell broke loose._

. . .

~—~

Gordon Freeman leaned against a wall, the blood of his zombified colleagues splattered on his face and HEV suit. He had given up on wiping the liquid off several hours back, and he no longer knew which blood was his and which was the zombies'. Honestly, he didn't care anymore. The physicist just wanted to get to the surface to hand responsibility to someone who actually knew what to do. He clutched his crowbar like an anchor to reality, sneaking around corners and into dark rooms with increasing dread. He was never sure what he would find behind all those closed doors.

His eyes darted up to see the pinkish tongue of one of the carnivorous ceiling-creatures dangling dangerously close to where he was about to step. He rapidly strapped the crowbar to his waist and pulled out his pistol, placing four well-aimed shots to the things middle. The tongue retracted, and the now-dead carnivore dropped its payload of human bones onto the floor. Gordon couldn't hold back a shudder. He just wasn't built for this stuff. He was at home surrounded by equations and long, nigh-unpronounceable words, not shooting things; he only knew how to deal with the latter because the hazard course and target practice was mandatory—heaven knew why.

Gordon holstered the gun once more and brandished the crowbar, taking a deep breath and darting across another hall. A trio of face-eating crab-things pounced him at once, and he dispatched them with relative ease in comparison to the first one he had killed. That one had suffered a messy death indeed, caused by the haphazard swings Gordon had employed in his panic. A small glow of pride warmed the scientist's chest; he was improving. Under different circumstances, he might have been able to have fun doing this, perhaps playing baseball with the screaming creatures. As it was, the crabs had turned untold numbers of his colleagues into groaning, shrieking zombies, and he was far too frightened to even remotely enjoy the hunt.

At least his hands didn't shake anymore, and he no longer felt the need to vomit when he saw a corpse.

Gordon continued on his way through the Black Mesa complex, breaking windows and destroying government property as easily as he killed the wide-eyed dog things, the crabs, the slender electricity creatures, and zombies. Knowing his luck, he'd get fined for wrecking facility property after this was all over. He knew he wasn't going to get away with that microwave prank he had pulled on Magnusson, if the man was still alive. Gordon chuckled. The mischievous act had been worth it for the laughs..

_There you are, man,_ he thought to himself. _Think about things that are at least somewhat cheerful, and you might just get out of this with your sani—HOLY S—T!_

Gordon ducked and tumbled out of the way of one of the electric things, which had come out from behind a corner. Curse it, this was what happened whenever he allowed himself to think. Was this the cost of survival, then? He could only live if he didn't use his mind? The thought was depressing to the physicist, who drew his gun and promptly unloading enough slugs to kill the creature. Once he knew the thing was dead, he pressed a finger to the bridge of his glasses and shoved them up his nose. He really wished he had brought a cloth along so he could wipe the glass from time to time; his visibility was beyond horrible.

~—~

Alyx Vance nibbled on a block. It wasn't a particularly tasty wooden cube, although her mother probably could make it taste good, but it held her attention and allowed her to block—had she been older, she would've laughed at the pun—out the noises from beyond the door of Black Mesa's nursery wing. She sometimes heard Daddy wondering what research facility builds a nursery. Mommy usually said something about how there were a lot of couples with other children who worked for the facility, and it was easier and cheaper than normal daycare, although she honestly didn't know why either.

Not that Alyx understood any of that, of course.

She could hear shouts and growls from behind the door, sounds just like the ones the monsters under her bed made. Alyx clutched her block closer and hugged her knees a little. Miss Amy, the nice lady who ran the nursery, had gone outside to get some napkins after Alyx spilled a cup of apple juice all over the puzzle-piece carpet.

That was when the sun was still up. It was dark now, and the apple juice had been fully absorbed by the rug. Miss Amy had never come back.

Alyx eventually crawled over to the cubby where all the toys lay, trying to find something that would really distract her from the growls and screams. Halfway across the floor, she heard a petrifying shriek and froze, brown, innocent eyes wide with terror.

"Mommy?" she squeaked. "Daddy?"

The door crashed open and a lumbering creature slunk inside. It looked like a person the way an anglerfish looks like a guppy. A brown animal sat atop the person's head, its chest was a gaping cavity, and long claws extended from bloodied sleeves. Alyx smelled her mother's perfume as soon as the creature walked in.

Little Alyx screamed as loud as she could as the creature stumbled towards her.

"_Mo-o-ommy-y-y!_"

All of a sudden, the creature that smelled like her mommy stopped, gurgled, and took a step back. Alyx looked up at it, unblinking, unmoving. The person-thing let out a moaning scream, and advanced once more.

Alyx's tiny throat let out the loudest shriek it could muster, calling for the only thing on Earth that could save her.

"_DA-A-A-A-A-AD-DY-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y!_"

The creature froze for a moment, and let out a confused groan. Alyx shook violently and finally began to cry, eyes screwed shut as if to deny what was happening.

Then the thing in front of her violently exploded.

Alyx looked up at where the creature had been standing, saw the splatters of gore on the wall, and her crying abruptly stopped. Her lower lip trembled, and she let out a loud sniff.

"…Crying?" said a slightly repulsed voice from behind her.

Alyx wiped her nose on her sleeve and slowly turned around. The owner of the voice was a man, sharply dressed, looking down at her with a slight grimace. In one hand he held a handled box, with the other he straightened his tie.

"Who are you?" Alyx whimpered.

The man offered no reply. Instead he bent down, brushed the tears from her eyes with the thumb of his free hand, and then scooped her little body up, pressing her into his chest. She struggled for several minutes, during which time the man simply stood stock-still, until she finally relented and just wrapped her arms around his thin neck. He made a sound of discomfort and his head twisted slightly to the side as her short black hair brushed against his chin, but other that he did nothing.

The room around them slowly dissolved, and the world went black for just a moment. Alyx whimpered again, and pressed her face into the man's chest. There was a whoosh, and Alyx could tell from the noises—calmer than the screams outside her nursery, but still noises—that the world had reconstructed. She sniffed, her diaphragm shuddering.

A hiccup jumped from her throat.

Alyx heard the strange man sigh. He hesitated, and then rubbed her head with his thumb. Alyx clutched the fabric of his suit in her tiny fist, snuffling into the cloth, inciting a half-interested _hmm_ from the man.

Suddenly, Alyx heard Daddy. Her little heart leapt at the sound of his drawling voice.

"Alyx? Is that—who are you?"

"I am…no one," the man said.

"Who are you," Daddy repeated, voice low and angry, "and what are you doing with my daughter?"

"I just saved…her life," the man replied, annoyed.

Alyx felt Daddy's strong, broad hands pull her from the strange man's grip, and she felt her father's lips press against the top of her head. The man coughed.

"Are you aware of what has…transpired in Sec-tor C?" asked the man.

"…What," said Daddy flatly.

Alyx looked up at the man to see him shake his head. "I can-not…say. However," he added, putting up his free hand, "I will say this." The man took two steps towards Daddy and, apparently forgetting that Alyx was squished between the two men, though she dared not voice her objections, whispered four words that would not terrify her until she was much older. "Prepare…for unforeseen…consequences."

* * *

A/N: Hey, you know the poem I quoted at the beginning of this chappy? YOU SHOULD GO READ IT. IT'S GLORIOUS. Of course, I'm a poetry lover, and you may not be, but…GO READ IT ANYWAY. Here: http : / / www dot hwlongfellow dot org / poems_?pid=312 Of course, you'll want to take out the spaces and replace the "dot"s with actual periods, but… you know. ^_^


	4. Nightfall

A/N: And what suggestions would those be, Gamazek? Do tell, else I shall be forced to over-analyse each of those comments and lose sleep, and then my writing will suffer the…consequences. And you don't want that, believe me. o_o

Beta'ed by the wonderful Kathryn Shadow! :D

* * *

From Dusk 'til Dawn

4

Nightfall

The most persistent sound which reverberates through history is the beating of war drums.

—Arthur Koestler

Alyx looked at the strange man in the suit, her eyes wide and eyebrows pulled together. The man's face was expressionless, except for the lift of his brow and the slight purse of his thin lips. Daddy held her protectively, and she could hear his heart quicken.

"I…regret the need to…repeat myself, Mi_sss_ter Vance. You did not seem par_tic_ularly, ehh, _affected_ earlier," the man said with a smirk.

"Who _are_ you?" hissed Daddy.

The man sighed, frustrated with Alyx's stubborn father. "I advise you to…run, Mi_sss_ter Vance. Or, perhaps, I could take the liberty of…removing you from the facility?"

Daddy stiffened. "What do you mean by that?"

"This place will soon be…overrun. There is little chance of survival," the man said smoothly, "and in a few short hours, everyone here will be dead. You can attempt to escape on your own, but it would be…unwise to decline my offer."

Daddy swallowed.

"Your answer…?" the man said, brushing dust from his jacket.

Alyx looked back up at her daddy. He was stiff, and she could see his jaw twitch. His grip around her small body tightened, and he finally nodded.

"Wisely done." The man was smiling; Alyx heard it in his voice. She shivered a little as reality dissolved again. The last thing she heard before the world reappeared was, "I am sorry…for your loss."

~—~

Midna yawned and opened her eyes blearily. It had been a late night of dealing with scriveners and superstitious lunatics, and gods, she was tired. The scriveners told her of rumours of strange goings-on in other parts of the realm, which the superstitious lunatics declared was the anger of the gods manifest in natural events. The scriveners argued with the superstitious lunatics for several hours about how nothing had been occurring in any part of the realm to incur the wrath of the powers that be, the superstitious lunatics declared that the scriveners were blind, and Midna had been left with a horrific headache.

She rubbed the back of her neck—evidently she had slept with it at an uncomfortable angle—and looked around her bedchamber. The walls were the usual black stone, which, after the variety of stones and brickworks of the world of light, looked rather boring to Midna now. The only thing that she honestly believed superior about the identical walls was the veins of blue light that ran up them. Midna smugly reminded herself that it was a beauty the light realm did not have.

_And that silly Hylian was probably too busy killing things to even notice_, she thought, rolling her eyes.

Midna had long ago replaced the boy's name with "the Hylian boy" or "that kid in the tunic". Names equated attachment. She had to remain detached from his world. Light and shadow, as she herself had said, did not mix. She had to keep telling herself that, or…

Nothing would happen, the Mirror was shattered, she had destroyed it, there was no going back.

_You need to stop being an idiot, Midna_, she told herself. _I bet __**he**__ isn't being a twit right now, which would be a drastic change I'm not sure the worlds could handle, but that's better than you. _

Midna half-pulled herself, half-fell out of bed and wearily stumbled to the small table where a servant had somehow placed her breakfast without waking her. She didn't much notice the flavours, and she paid no attention to the taste of the liquid she sent chasing after the food. If one were to ask her the next day, she would remark that it was sweet, and remember nothing else.

She would then add that she should have savoured her last meal.

Midna ran a hand over the surface of her head to make sure she was presentable—presentation was everything in matters of state—and, stifling a yawn, stepped outside of the warm sanctuary that was her bedroom. She opened the double doors…

…into hell.

"What the—?" Midna exclaimed in equal parts shock and ire. Dark energy formed in the palms of her hands, the result of her explosion of emotions.

Creatures that resembled enormous maggots had invaded her palace. They were almost the size of a Shadow Kargaroc, and coloured an unsightly shade of white Midna would have expected on a putrid corpse. The things seemed to defy the laws of reality, in that though they were wingless, they managed to float and zoom around like bees, subduing her people. These creatures were in her palace. And they were _killing her people._

"Oh, no you don't!" Midna snarled.

Teeth bared, she released the energy in the direction of one of the creatures, which had shoved a pink, wormish tongue-thing into the back of one of her counsellor's necks. The creature barrelled into the wall, and the counsellor fell to the floor in a crumpled, broken heap, blood trickling from the wound. Midna rushed to the counsellor and cradled his head gently in one hand, searching with the other for any signs of life. She found none.

Midna gritted her teeth and silently declared brutal and bloody war.

Casting mass after mass of dark energy at the maggot creatures, Midna attempted to destroy them. However, the balls of matter seemed to only annoy the invaders, which, she knew, would only prove more costly in the end. She cursed through her teeth and searched for some sort of weapon.

There was a definite drawback to living in a world where most of its inhabitants live in blissful peace. That drawback was that Midna could not find anything sharp enough to puncture these things' maggoty skin and make them bleed. She suddenly found herself wishing she still had the Fused Shadow so she could simply crush these things into oblivion.

Her people were, considering their nature, fighting admirably, but falling like flies. A deep sickness rose in Midna's throat. Instead of vomiting—which she decided to do later, if she got an opportunity—she redoubled her efforts and attacked the creatures with more varied magicks. She successfully blasted one to whatever netherworld maggot monsters went when they died but, immediately after, one looked over with a strange metal eye on the side of its head. After deducing that she was the annoying one smashing its comrades into walls, the creature made a beeline for her.

Midna lowered her centre of gravity and prepared to strike. The creature paused a small distance away from her, lower half of its body tilted down as if it were glaring at her. She glared back. The pinkish tongue snaked out, and as she lifted her hand to blast the creature to pieces, her vision went black.

~—~

_Oh, no. Not again_. Those four words echoed in a grim loop in Link's mind as he swung his leg over Epona's saddle. Ilia told him she would tell her father, and wait for him if he decided to go to Castle Town to figure out what was going on. She realised rather quickly that he wasn't going to sit around while something was exploding. He dashed to his home, equipped all his weaponry, and as he made his way out of the town, bidding a silent farewell to Ilia. Link urged Epona to get him out of Ordona and into Lanayru Province as quickly as possible.

Epona seemed to understand his urgency, and went as fast as she could without hurting herself. Link thanked the goddesses, as he had so many times before, for such an excellent horse. He leaned into her mane and kept his eyes forward.

_Not again._

Peacetime was what he strove for. Peacetime was what had settled over Hyrule for the past two years. And that peacetime had come crashing down, literally, with the sound of breaking stone. What fresh hell had come to the land?

When the castle came into view, Link felt the ground rumble. He looked around to see evidence of some sort of earthquake—surely, considering how long he had rode, and that the blasts had boomed steadily the whole time, there would be signs of destruction—but saw none. The trees were upright, their proud branches lifted to the heavens, and the plains were as clear of debris as the day they were created. Link frowned.

Then sounded another crash, this time much closer, that startled the steadfast mare so much that she bucked and cast her green-clad rider from the saddle. Link yelped and fell flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him and all the equipment slung over his shoulder digging into his back.

"Ahh," he groaned, a grimace of pain pressing his eyes shut.

Once the aches of falling unceremoniously to the earth subsided, Link's eyes drifted open, and he stared into the sky. What he saw made him doubt his sanity.

In the clouds to the north was a lightning bolt unlike any the hero had ever seen. It was as thick as the trunk of an ancient oak, and a vague shade of cyan. Surrounding its base in the clouds was a circle of light, of a slightly whiter colour than the bolt itself. The bolt struck the ground, remained for what felt like an eternity, and exploded. A sphere of what Link could only assume was some sort of magic erupted from the end of the bolt, expanding until it was large enough to engulf a house, and then fizzled out.

_What the…_

Link jumped to his feet and bounded towards Epona. When he reached her, he attempted to calm her with gentle touches before pushing himself once more into the saddle. Epona snorted, and then, through the coaxing of Link's clicking tongue, flew once more into a gallop.

The half-rhythmic beats of Epona's hooves did little to regulate Link's erratic pulse, which pounded in his ears like a war drum. He felt the tightness of anxiety constrict his chest, and his body was so stiff that if anything had attacked him at that moment the hypertension would have destroyed him. Trees and rocks and hills flew past him as he rode, and yet the castle neared at such a slow pace that Link wanted to hurt something. He glared at the structure, as though his speed was its fault.

He finally reached the colossal stone stairs that led up to the town from the south, and, when Epona refused to ascend the steps, he dismounted, knowing the trustworthy horse would stay where he left her. Swift feet flew up the stairs and bounded towards the gates. Link sprinted through the town, dodging the uncomfortably small number of passers-by to reach the town square. He took the proper turn and dashed towards the castle. A single question resounded in his mind at the moment the entrance came into view:

…Where were the guards?

Repressing a small shudder, Link made his way inside the castle, through the corridors, and up all the stairs. He wondered, the whole time, where everyone was. Link expected to find a stray nobleman, arms folded, a scowl on his face and a demand on his lips as to why the Queen refused to see him. Finally, Link reached the throne room.

Ah, that's where the guards went. Or, at least, eleven of them. Link tilted his head. Surely the castle guards were of a greater number than _that_? He stepped forward, noting that they were of the usual, none-too-bright stock that the entirety of the guard consisted of. None of them heard the tread of his feet, or if they did, none of them turned to look. All eleven of them stood with their backs to the vast throne chamber's entrance, staring at the Queen, whose face was set in trepidation. She had stood from her throne and, evidently for a rather long time, been pacing the scarlet carpet.

Link stood on his toes and waved to the pacing Queen. It took her a moment, but she, too, eventually waved.

"Hello, Link," Zelda said, the deep lines between her eyebrows fading to give way to a smile of greeting. She strode towards him, the guards parting before her. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Link nodded. _Years_, he thought. He held no bitterness towards the Queen; it would be bad form if the head of government were to continuously seek visits from a poor farm boy from an only recently annexed province.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you're here," the Queen continued, "since you seem to have a penchant for danger. I take it you've seen the sky?"

Link nodded again.

"No theories as to what's causing these oddities, I take it?"

Here Link shook his head with gusto.

"Nor me. One of these fine fellows—ah, what was your name again?"

"Cale," one of the guards replied with an undoubtedly practiced bow.

"Cale. Cale seems to be under the impression that these strange lightning strikes are the results of alchemical…meddling." She said this last word as if it left a bitter taste in her mouth. "I sent another one of the guards down to the cellars to see if that is indeed the case. He should be back soon." Zelda looked at the downward path of the sun, her brow furrowing once more. "Should be," she repeated, more softly.

Link made a motion towards the stairs, although his calves ached, in an offer to go down after the guard.

"If you want to," Zelda said, "feel free. I leave you with no obligation this time."

The hero smiled and turned. As he readied himself to conquer the stairs once more, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Really," Zelda murmured. "I feel it is my duty as Queen of Hyrule to, for one, apologise for forcing you to put yourself in harm's way the last time we saw one another. For another, I want you to know that if you don't want to go through that again, you don't have to."

Link, in what was likely some breach of proper conduct, put his own hand on Zelda's shoulder, as if to say:

_I want this. This is how I live._

Zelda seemed to understand, and retracted her hand. She bowed and, as he descended the stairs, returned to pacing the red carpet.

Link made his way to the cellars, and was, quite understandably, horrified by what he found.

~—~

The prisoner topped off his jaunt through the dimensions with a stop at a pastry shop in 21st-century Britain. The smell of baked goods of varying types and tastes assaulted his nostrils with the blunt force of an army comprised of infant rabbits. Customers lounged in mildly uncomfortable-looking metal chairs and leaned on the humble shop's countertops, chatting with the employees. The prisoner barely held back a smirk. Poor, ignorant people. Didn't they realise the inevitable fate of their pathetic planet? Why were they so intent on ignoring the only members of their dense little species who had anything sensible to say about the way the die had been cast?

"And 'ow may I 'elp you, sah?" asked a freckled, portly woman with flour on her face. If memory served, her name was Gladys. Before the prisoner had an opportunity to open his mouth, Gladys's mouth rounded into a comical _O_ of recognition, and she bounced a little on the balls of her feet. "Oh, it's _you_, Mistah Green! Sorry, sorry, me memory's goin'. The usual, then?"

The prisoner did smirk then. He nodded. "Please."

"Righty-o, ol' G. _Paul_!" Gladys shrieked at one of the assistant cooks. The young man in question jumped and clutched a hand to his chest.

"'ave I done something wrong, ma'am?" he squeaked, brown eyes wide behind a thin curtain of black hair.

"Not at all," Gladys replied warmly. "You remember ol' G, yeah?"

Paul grinned. "Of course. Who can forget ol' G?"

"He's gettin' the usual, so be a dear and go get one from the batch that just popped out of the oven, will ya?"

Paul responded with a brisk nod, turned heel, and went to obey the shrill-voiced cook.

The prisoner gave the woman the amount of money the pastry cost and sat down before she could talk his ear off. He didn't exactly have all the time in the world. In fact, if his time-sense remained as accurate as usual—which, naturally, it did—he only had the lesser part of an Earthen hour. As a way to ensure his captors believed they actually kept decent track of him during his…excursions, he left definite trails when he embarked on journeys that would not land him soundly dead.

Or worse, Synthed.

Today was one of the days that he left screaming proverbial mud footprints at the proverbial door of a proverbial crime scene, but he knew that the crime for which he would inevitably be convicted was not serious enough to merit any sort of grim punishment. The activities that would cause far, far worse repercussions were the ones he took great lengths to disguise.

Dimensional rips were so easily hidden from a species that hadn't even mastered the portal.

With a masterful flourish that would not have been out of place in a three-ring circus or an auction, Paul the shrieked-at assistant brought out the prisoner's last meal before his return to captivity. The prisoner inhaled deeply through his nostrils, savouring the delectable scent of the pastry, before at long last he partook of the glorious ritual that was the first bite of a well-made pie.

_Mm. Humans may be irksome, imbecilic apes, but they do know food._

The edible poetry was, to continue the literary metaphor, too quick a scrumptious read for his taste. The prisoner found himself resisting the urge to lick his fork. Ah, well, he could feel the tug on his innards that was his time limit vaporising like so much cream in the hands of a toddler with access to an open heat source. With a polite nod to the patrons of the bakery, the prisoner walked outside, turned a corner—

—and vanished.

. . .

The prisoner materialised slowly, head first, the rest of his body fading into existence at an almost leisurely pace. A sigh escaped his lips when his full form finished entering the dimension, and the pain in his abdomen subsided. There was a problem with taking three full decades to coerce a hostile jailer into allowing brief parole and not completing the negotiations to his liking. The way that his captors had decided to inform him that his time limit was almost up was by causing a pain in his insides that one might liken to having a limb yanked at by an angry robot, if one's DNA had decided to play a trick and attach a leg to the small intestine.

Immediately after his body finished forming, a metal-plated boot connected with the prisoner's back. With a grunt, he fell forward, catching himself to prevent his nose from hitting the cold floor of his containment chamber. The same boot struck the back of his head, half-crushing his nose into the floor, eliciting a muffled cry that leapt, unbidden, from the prisoner's throat. A rough hand grabbed the back of the faded grey jumpsuit his captors had long ago stuffed him in, and flipped him onto his back.

"Agh!" the prisoner gasped as his head hit the hard surface.

"**You were not to intervene**," snarled the distorted voice behind the Cyclops-like white mask.

"It was a child," the prisoner snapped back in his native tongue.

"**You were not to intervene**," the Elite repeated, crouching closer to the prisoner, forcing him to stare into that single red eye.

The prisoner only glared, unspeaking, jaw clenched.

Likewise, the Elite offered no more elaboration than that before he clapped a pair of handcuffs onto the prisoner's wrists and pulled him to his feet. The prisoner stumbled only once as the Elite yanked at the collar of the jumpsuit and forced him through the steel door of the containment chamber. The prisoner felt a sting across the surface of his head as soon as he left the growth repression frame that encased his cell. Ah, his hair was growing back. Finally. He felt the pressure of the dimensional manipulation repressor fade from his consciousness, and took immediate advantage. That wretched jumpsuit, now disguised as a crisp, business-like suit, deserved to be dropped into a vat of hydrochloric acid.

The Elite walked behind the prisoner, jabbing him in the back with the butt of his pulse rifle. Every time the Elite did so, the prisoner looked back and shot the soldier a murderous glare. After an extended—and painful—stroll down the dark corridor of the cellblock, the prisoner and his escort came to a halt in front of a set of double-doors not unlike those in a psychiatric ward. Holstering the pulse rifle for a moment, the Elite clutched the prisoner by the back of the neck, sending a flash of pain down the sides of his throat, and shoved the doors open with the other hand. The Elite didn't release his grip on the prisoner's neck until they passed through another door, this one leading into an innocuous-looking office.

An enormous, idle screen taking up half the opposite wall bathed the office in blue-white light, the only source of illumination in the entire room. The prisoner noted with a small huff through his nostrils that the office's occupant had done a very poor job of disguising the purpose of the visit, as if the aggressive manner of the Elite hadn't been obvious enough. A pair of familiar, rusty pliers rested on the vast desk beneath the giant screen, and next to the pliers sat a scalpel.

A lesser being would have gulped. The prisoner, however, only half-interestedly noted that his captors had finally gotten the knack of controlling the temporal aspect of a spatiotemporal cell. According to the Elite that had taken such apparent pleasure in electrocuting the prisoner, the room in which he now stood was supposed to be so much smouldering rubble. As it obviously wasn't, the cell had apparently been pulled back in Time for the simple purpose of letting the man who was meant to be dead—or at least mortally wounded—know that the prisoner had overstepped his boundaries.

_Qo'or_, his mind cursed bitterly.

Behind the desk sat a man who, in another time, could have easily passed for an avant-garde painter, what with the ribbed, turtleneck sweater he wore underneath his brown suit jacket. The prisoner knew, however, that the white-haired man staring at him with slate-grey eyes was, unfortunately, not going to boast about recent artistic triumphs in the near future—or any future, for that matter.

"Administrator," the prisoner said with a deep nod of forced politeness, dipping with considerable ease into the speech of the planet.

The man in the suit hooked a finger into the collar of his sweater and tugged at the neckline, lifting a lazy eyebrow. "Humph," was his philosophical reply.

"Is there any, ah, particular reason you asked to see me?" the prisoner inquired, as if the answer wasn't plain from the way the Administrator's hand wandered towards the pliers on the desk.

"I would have assumed that was at least somewhat obvious," the man said.

"It is. I wanted you to feel that your…attempts at subtlety were, in fact, effective, Mister Breen," the prisoner smirked.

"Subtlety has nothing to do with it. We traced your activities—"

"Obviously."

"—and no one up top was terribly pleased to discover it was _you_."

_Yes, yes. Would you kindly tell me something that isn't mind-burningly obvious?_

"It's become apparent that our methods have not been as successful as once thought. Really, your brazen rebelliousness is giving disciplinarians across the Universe a bad name," Breen chuckled humourlessly.

The prisoner did not grace the comment with a reply.

"Anyway," continued the Administrator, "it's glaringly evident that our efforts must be redoubled. And so, without further ado…"

The prisoner stiffened as the Elite wrapped its fingers around his wrists and pushed him to his knees. Breen picked up the scalpel, looked at it distastefully, and laid it back down with the slightest shake of his head. The prisoner scoffed. Of course Breen wouldn't do his own dirty work.

The door behind the prisoner opened and, upon turning his head, the prisoner saw that a man in a camouflage uniform, the sleeves of his jacket rolled past the elbows, had stepped in. The man didn't appear to be of Overwatch stock, but he had the dead look in his eye that the prisoner knew as the look of a soulless robot with human insides. Deep brown eyes looked down into ice blue, and a muscle in the newcomer's jaw twitched.

"And who…are you?" asked the prisoner.

"We picked him up off an island in the Pacific, before the oceans, ah, depleted," Breen explained almost giddily. "He's got one of the best skill sets, you see. Very employable."

The prisoner ignored the Administrator and kept his gaze set on the newcomer. "You didn't…answer…my question."

"And he won't," Breen said, irritation creeping into his voice. "In the years we've had him around, he's gotten hundreds of men to scream like the day they first fell off a bicycle, but never said a word himself. Not that matters;" he added, "he gets the job done just as well in silence."

The newcomer reached behind his head and tugged his curly black hair into a ponytail, face expressionless. The Administrator stepped around the prisoner and the Elite to hand the pliers to the voiceless one. With a bow to Breen, the man in camouflage gestured to the Elite to back off and, once that command was obeyed, approached the prisoner.

~—~

They were so alike. Both were unwilling cogs in the vast Combine machine, cogs with no sense of identity. The only difference, really, was how they viewed their employment. The man on his knees before the torturer was, if the murderous glint in those cold blue eyes was any indication, gravely embittered for reasons that the torturer neither needed nor desired to know. The torturer had lived his mildly unpleasant life before the Combine takeover, but upon their arrival, he had seen an employment opportunity and taken it. He had, as Breen said, one of the best skill sets.

He knew how to make men sing like nightingales in an electric cheese shredder.

So he took slow, deliberate steps towards the man in the suit, compressing the pliers in one hand while the other remained in his deep jacket pocket. The prisoner didn't even flinch when the torturer knelt down and looked him fully in the eye. With a sigh through his nostrils, the torturer shifted his position so the prisoner's back was to him. He gripped one of the prisoner's bound wrists, the tightness of his constricting fingers eliciting the smallest of gasps from his victim. He twisted the hand, gained another gasp, and finally fixed the operational end of the pliers around one of his victim's fingers.

The strangulation of the digits was almost gentle at first, and only small gasps and twitches of discomfort were the torturer's reward. Slowly, he increased the pressure on the two grips of the pliers, and the reactions deviated from gasps to small groans, and from groans to tiny, low cries. When the prisoner's face was scrunched to a satisfactory degree, the torturer removed the pliers and placed them on the floor.

He then retrieved something he hadn't used in what he deemed far too long. It was a single shard of bark that he had kept secretly all these years, from back in his island days. He gently inserted it underneath a fingernail on the hand that had not received the pliers. The prisoner went rigid, and a noise like the unholy spawn of a moan and a whimper crawled out of his throat. Throwing subtlety to the wolves, the torturer jammed the wood into the fingernail.

The prisoner let out a raw, ungodly scream. The torturer wiggled the shard. The scream continued for about five more seconds, before the torturer jerked the wood out. The man in the suit was shaking slightly now. Looking up, the torturer saw that Breen was grinning.

"She was just a child," Breen said to the prisoner, whose breathing had become ragged. "A tiny, impractical lump of crying flesh. This world's better off without children, don't you think? They're useless."

The prisoner did not reply.

The torturer stood, walked to the desk, and snatched the scalpel. He returned to his victim and used the scalpel to tear the suit apart. With simple hand motions, he demanded water. Not a glass to remedy parchedness, but a bucket or two. He feigned a shiver.

"Make it so, then," Breen declared. "Cold water!"

The torturer nodded. Only a minute or so later, during which the prisoner did a remarkably good job of retaining dignity, a thoroughly unhappy-looking woman with stringy blonde hair brought in a pair of buckets, taking great care not to slosh any of the frigid liquid onto the floor. The torturer went towards her, took the buckets, and promptly dumped the lot onto the prisoner.

The prisoner glared at his tormentor. The torturer reached into his pocket again and pulled out a long, thin cord, held in a circle with a simple twist-tie. The torturer slowly, laboriously undid the twist-tie, and let the full length of the cord fall from his hand, keeping one end, made entirely of thick knots, in his right hand. He could hear the prisoner's teeth chatter.

And he struck the man on the floor with the cord. The water helped the skin to split more easily, and the prisoner cried out. He struck again. And the prisoner made music.

Like a nightingale in an electric cheese shredder.

* * *

I really, really, _**really**_ apologise for how goshdarned long this chapter ended up being. I mean, really. Hopefully no one fell asleep or anything of that sort.

Also, if no one has, anyone who likes hard rock of any sort needs to go listen to Never Again, by Disturbed. Seriously. You can find it here: / GO LISTEN TO IT. NAOW.


	5. Hindsight

A/N: The fact that FF deleted my link in the last chapter irks me. Go on YouTube. Look for Never Again. _Go listen to it._ Wait, scratch that—just GO ON WHATEVER MUSIC DOWNLOADY THING YOU USE AND BUY THE WHOLE CD. SERIOUSLY. I'll finish my fangirling later on.

Beta'ed by... look, shouldn't you know this by now?

* * *

From Dusk 'til Dawn

5

Hindsight

People of genius whenever they are faced with misfortune find resources within themselves.

—Brouhours

The prisoner waited until his guards' footsteps retreated down the hall before pulling himself towards a blind spot and curling his knees into his chest. The skin of his back and shoulders was shredded beyond recognition; the pain would have been unbearable had he not gotten used to it so long ago. Humans were as inventive with torture as they were with food, but that didn't mean he hadn't seen it all at least twice. The lacerated flesh still stung, though.

The prisoner rubbed his temple with the index and centre finger of his right hand, the hand that had been subjected to the pliers three times in the course of his three-hour…session, but had not endured the glorified splinter. He had a headache the size of Ursa Major, not to mention he could barely apply pressure to his left foot, and his jumpsuit had been torn to pieces. Peculiarly, his physical pain was the last thing on his mind.

The first thing on his mind was genetic manipulation.

_I need to see how the isolation's timeline is functioning, too._

He didn't particularly enjoying bouncing through Time; it made him ill. Usually he did it in the least nauseating manner, which was the usage of his own inter-dimensional walkways. He would break open the walls of whatever dimension he happened to occupy at the time, walk through, patch the crack, and open a wall to the time and position of his choice. More often than not, he would use this method for the sole purpose of observation, as it allowed for access to less-than-accessible locations that those he observed sometimes didn't even notice. It was fortuitous when his observations occurred at the point in time as the place from which he started, as with the bounce between the explosion of the Citadel and the point of being informed of the event by Corporal Obvious, but that sort of happy coincidence rarely occurred.

For that, his kind had developed a technique called the spatiotemporal dive. It was less a dive than a long metaphysical leap across what might be described as a flat yet completely un-surfaced plane known as the Void, involving multiple hurdles across physical and temporal improbabilities, the odd tumble through emptiness often resulting in being spun in semi-infinite circles, and the final result of a landing placed at the exact millisecond he had planned. Spatiotemporal dive took less time to say, even in the most complex and long-winded of intergalactic tongues.

The dive had a surprisingly low difficulty level and the likelihood of facing annihilation was pleasantly small. It was easily achieved with different modes of spatial transportation—his personal favourite was a quiet train, adopted from the practise of a group he knew as the Guides—and had few side effects.

It also made the prisoner sore and very, very sick. For this reason, he preferred to take all his dives at once, and retch upon their completion. He was also very careful not to allow his time limit to end while he was in the middle of a dive, as he was never sure if he'd return from the Void with all his body parts intact. After all, even if this form wasn't the one he was spawned with, the body had to be transported _somehow_, and the process involved agonising consequences if interrupted.

The prisoner allowed his digestive system to brace itself before he opened a worldwall. Once he had safely crawled into it, he guided himself towards the isolation.

The isolation was a special anomaly. The universe had regular anomalies, such as people who had parallels created around themselves, or pocket universes formed only for containing paradoxes, and then it had special anomalies created by beings like the prisoner, anomalies that existed outside of conventional reality and inhabited an indefinable slot of Time. They were created by the prisoner's long-dead progenitors and utilised only by him these days. This, naturally, meant that he was the only creature in the multiverse with the qualifications for repairs.

Sometimes he cursed his progenitors for forming so many special anomalies which, if destroyed, would bring the rest of the multiverse with them. However, the need for upkeep was a beautifully valid excuse for a vast multitude of excursions, which his captors had little problem with him taking. After all, how does one conquer the multiverse with no multiverse to conquer? The prisoner would have had more respect for his captors if they had put more brainpower into tracking him when he was inside an isolation, but the fact that they had happily deceived themselves into believing he wasn't up to anything devious whilst inside the things was certainly a nice strategic advantage.

After he broke into the isolation, the prisoner began his work by regenerating his damaged skin cells with a little tool he had pilfered from another Time-jumper. He kept a great deal of things he had collected over the years inside the isolation, not the least of which was one Gordon Freeman. Oh, certainly, he could go to any point in Time during the physicist's life to observe the man, but observation was always more interesting close up, when he could attach a device to the man's head and read his comatose brainwaves. Also, the isolation accessed the only time in Freeman's life where the prisoner could uninterruptedly tweak the man's DNA.

Everyone needs a hobby, after all.

Freeman, obviously, had had no idea when he was traipsing through Black Mesa what he would soon endure. He didn't know he would be coerced into a two-decade stasis less than a day from now as a pan-dimensional nomad waited for the physicist's own timeline to line up with that of a rather high bidder. The promised payoff was one of the most lucrative he had ever been offered. The bidder was no one in particular, really.

~—~

Din tapped her sandaled foot impatiently against the polished marble floor of her sisters' hallowed hall. Her face was a picture of pure vexation, as easily observed by the pencil-thin line that was her lips, the vein pulsing in her jaw, and the subtle trails of steam emanating from her ears. Nayru, all composure and graciousness, stood with hands serenely folded against her belly. Farore…where the hell was Farore? The sisters never held a "family talk" without all the members of the family present. Din crossed her sunburnt arms, and her eyelid twitched.

Nayru looked at her sister with those soft, clear blue eyes, the same colour as the skies she had rolled across the surface of their pet planet. The three sisters really bore no family resemblance. Din was a tan but easily-crisped creature with fiery red hair, a lean frame that could have easily been mistaken for that of a young human man's, a squarish jaw and eyes the colour of the sun. Nayru's skin was fair but refused at all costs to react to earthly sunlight, with a slender figure that no sane creature in any world would mistake for male, and her countenance was that of a woman whose childhood face hadn't entirely matured. Farore—really, where was that woman?—had the build of a pixy trained as an assassin, a face that had charmed more than one Hylian on her earthward jaunts, and hair the colour and texture of thatch. The three sisters were almost equal in height, with Nayru being tallest and Din shortest by a margin of only a few centimetres, and all three had a peculiar fondness for cloaks.

"Sorry I'm late," gasped the lilting voice of the Goddess of Wind, who then stumbled through one of the hall's many oaken doors with a flushed tint in her face. She cracked her neck and adjusted her belt. "Have I missed anything?"

"Oh, no, sister," Din said with a roll of her eyes, "of course not. We've only been waiting for the past _hour_ for you."

"Oh, good!" Farore grinned. "Shall we, then?"

Nayru chuckled softly. "Yes, I believe we shall. If you would both please take your seats, sisters."

Din slid with a catlike air into a throne cast from a metal only a little less heavy than cast iron and rested her chin on one hand. Farore slumped, in a careless manner that Hylian men seemed to find attractive for reasons Din never figured out, into a throne the youthful goddess herself had formed from a maple sapling. The youngest sister grinned at her older sisters, mischievous dimples forming in her softly tanned cheeks. Nayru ignored her and demurely lowered herself into a throne of intricately carved stone. The sisters stared at one another for a moment before Din broke the silence.

"This is about the deal, right?" she said bluntly, eyebrows raised sceptically.

"Of course," Nayru replied.

"I still don't know that much about it," Farore put in, her face scrunching up a little.

"I'll put it into terms you can understand, then," Din hissed. "Our lovely sister neglected to inform us that she had actually foreseen what's going on down below, and that now that 'the choices have been made', we can't actually alter it ourselves. Hence, we have to resort to…less honest means."

"Eh?"

"Come now, altering it ourselves would be too jarring for the peoples, and we can't exactly mind-wipe an entire population, can we?" Nayru pointed out. "Anyway, this is a situation I have not dealt with before, and I would very much like to see how it plays out."

"Uh, sis? You know that if this 'plays out' to fruition, the Hylians and every race and society down there is going to be obliterated, right?" Farore said, frowning.

"Of course. Which is why it won't be played out without a little assistance," Nayru answered.

"I thought Din just said—"

"I said _we_ can't fix it. We can use our avatars down there, though."

"Except yours is dead," sniggered Farore.

"Quiet, sister," Nayru said in deceptively calm tone. Farore recognised the slightly deeper pitch of her sister's voice and immediately fell silent. "Yes, as Din said, we can utilise our avatars. However, the point to which this method succeeds is a tentative guess at best, and the end of all we have created at worst."

"Not to mention," coughed Din, "that the Intruders won't necessarily stop at Hyrule. Imagine if they enter the Sacred Realm."

"Yeah, you think Ganondorf crawling in was bad," Farore said, and shivered, "just imagine what an entire _army_ of monsters like him getting in could do."

"Thank you for comparing my chosen avatar to a pestilence overtaking the universe, sister."

"My pleasure."

"Petty insults aside," Nayru continued, "this brings us to the deal."

"Great," Din groaned, kneading her forehead.

Suddenly, Farore's body stiffened, and her green eyes darted towards the largest set of doors, directly across from the calm Nayru. A coldness crept across Din's chest, and her spine straightened as her eyes followed her sister's. Din heard Farore's breath catch, and saw Nayru stand from her throne in her peripheral vision. The doors swung wide, and in strode a man.

"You are the abomination," hissed Din, her voice taking on the echoing, distorted quality mortals associated with the deities. "You should not be."

"Hush, sister," said Nayru. She walked towards the man, hand extended. "Welcome."

The man, a gaunt creature with high cheekbones, strode up to meet the goddess of wisdom, indigo robes billowing behind him as he walked. He bowed, took Nayru's hand, and shook it before pressing the back to his lips. Din felt a twinge of nausea. What was this creature, and how dare he kiss her sister's hand? Nayru was all grace and smiles, her eyes gleaming the way they did whenever Farore challenged her to a game of chess.

"I understand you have requested my…as_sis_tance?" the man said as his back straightened.

He spoke in the fluid tongue of the Hylian deities. Din's hands clenched into fists. How did he know their language?

"Did my message not make that clear, then?" Nayru inquired, eyebrows raised.

"I was merely seeking…clarity," the man replied, his sharp, black-ringed eyes alight from the thrill of a meeting of matched minds.

"Then yes, yes I did. You see, your own meddling in the affairs of our…ah…"

"Pawns?"

Din was surprised to see her sister's eyelid twitch.

"_Children_," Nayru corrected.

"Children do not…mindlessly serve their…parents," the man quipped, raising one eyebrow.

"And what do you know about that?" Farore asked, eyes narrowed.

The man offered no reply.

Nayru sighed and shared a glance with Din, who rolled her eyes. Farore was a bold and noble being, but tactful she was not. Din stood, opening her palms.

"Obviously my sister did not call on you for a debate," said the redheaded goddess, arms crossed, "so let's just cut to the chase. I'm sure you knew before you even entered the realm below what consequences would arise from your actions. Which reminds me," she added angrily, "how _dare_ you bring that…that…whatever it was into our realm?"

"The crys-tal?" the man asked.

"Yes! _That_!" Din exclaimed, flames licking across the surface of her arms. "You brought that into our real, you coerced the—"

"Pawns."

Din's hands clenched once more, and her fingernails dug into her palms. "You coerced them into experimenting with it, and you brought monstrosities into our world."

"Not…technically."

"Oh? Enlighten me!"

"It is not your…world."

Farore frowned. "We created it."

"But you do not…occupy it."

"I do, sometimes," Farore said with a wry grin.

"The…worlds belong to those who…use them. You…utilise _this_ world, but your…pawns…utilise the one 'below.'"

Nayru put a hand on Din's shoulder. "Be calm, sister."

"He _caused_ this mess and now he expects us to believe he'll fix it!" Din shouted.

"Calm down, sis," Farore said, frowning. "We only replaced the pillar you sit next to yesterday."

Din hissed.

"_I_ will not be…the one to make…reparations."

"Of course not," snipped Din.

The man treated the goddess to a bitter glare that would wilt poison ivy. Even Din was mildly unnerved by the dangerous spark in his cold eyes. She sensed Farore's shudder.

"So," said Nayru, unfazed, "how do you propose to solve the problem you have presented us?"

The man turned back to the eldest sister and his mouth turned upwards in a smirk. He reached into his robes and, after a moment of rifling, retrieved a scroll. The scroll passed between the entity and the goddess, and in her hands, unrolled. Nayru's clear cerulean eyes scanned the parchment, brows above them raised gently, and paused halfway down the sheet.

"So, you propose to bring these warriors into the realm and _that_ will fix the problem?" Nayru said, a playful scepticism in her voice daring him to defend whatever plan the scroll proposed. Din crossed her arms. If Nayru was dubious…

"You have faith in your own…warriors, but not…mine, then?" the man inquired, taking back the scroll.

"Our warriors have our power behind them," said Farore with a shrug. "We're deities, after all."

The man looked at Farore with a half-interested expression. "What makes you think my…warriors have no…support?" he questioned.

Farore frowned and swallowed. "What kind of support are you talking about?" she asked, body stiff.

"Surely you know already," the man said as the scroll returned to the folds in his robes.

"Well, we don't even know who your _warriors_ are," Din snapped.

The man nodded to Din, in a manner she could only define as grateful—in some way she guessed had to be morally reprehensible. He gestured for the three goddesses to assemble in a circle. Din put her hand to the hilt of the dagger at her hip and complied. A sphere of light materialised in his outstretched palms, and Farore, despite her eldest sister's silent warning against it, leaned in to look at it.

"Ow," the Goddess of Winds winced. "That… that's bright."

"_Ob_viously," the man responded with the slightest roll of his cold eyes. The light dimmed. "Now… see."

Din looked into the light. In the centre of the sphere was an image of two figures, one female, one male, standing back-to-back, each brandishing a strange weapon. The woman's weapon was only the size of her hands, while the man's was larger than his own head. They appeared to be in battle.

"Two people?" Din scoffed. "You think two people are going to fix this mess?"

"They're doing it…right now," the man replied, "on their own world. And doing…a rather…decent job, I might add."

"If they're busy on their home-world," Nayru said, "what business have you in bringing them to Hyrule?"

"Their world's…rebellion has progressed far e_nough_ to continue…moving on its own…without them. Consider it," he said, "an inertia of in_sub_ordination."

"I don't think that—" Farore began.

"Tea," interrupted Nayru.

"Tea?" Din repeated incredulously.

The Goddess of Wisdom nodded towards Farore, who smiled and waved a hand towards the floor. A table of intertwined vines grew from the marble, and atop it appeared cups filled with steaming brown liquid.

"It has such a calming effect, don't you agree?" Nayru asked the robed man, offering him a cup.

"Indubitably," the man replied, accepting it.

~—~

Farore was confused, but she wasn't one to refuse tea. She sat at her throne, cup in hand, and sipped, looking over the rim at the strange, strange man. He looked like a mortal, but held himself in a relaxed manner. Mortals just didn't do that sort of thing. They weren't _relaxed_ around deities.

Yet here was this anomaly, leisurely sipping tea while discussing the fate of the world with Nayru. He seemed to believe that all Hyrule needed to combat this menace was those two warriors. Farore didn't understand; even when her avatar fought Din's avatar, it was one man with the aid of a goddess against another man, his aid and comparatively small army.

This? This was a man and a woman against _battalions_! It wasn't possible. Not with humans.

"Your…air is...doubtful," the man said to Farore, staring at her with those horridly cold, cold eyes.

"Well, yeah," Farore replied. "Two people just can't _fight_ that…whatever it is!"

"Most...worlds refer to…it as the…Combine."

Farore didn't know what it was about the name that gave her a small chill. "What do they do? These Combine, I mean."

"They…come… they fight…they destroy, and they…enslave. It isn't a…pleasant cycle, but that…is how it runs."

"Encouraging," sniffed Din. "And how do you expect us to believe that these two can bring that down?"

"I already…said."

"Mmhmm." A muscle in Din's jaw twitched.

"And do you have so…little…faith in your…pawns—"

"Children," Nayru interrupted, her expression one of mild amusement.

"—that you expect…mine to do all the…work?"

"They're the ones with the experience, aren't they?" Din asked.

The man regarded the fiery deity with a raised eyebrow. His mouth pressed tightly shut in thought, and Farore saw his arms cross, as if he was pondering how best to deal with Din. Din herself was expressionless apart from the closeness of her brows. Nayru calmly sipped her tea.

"Your pawns are…" He paused to mull over his word choice. "…fighters, are they…not? Creatures born of…war. My…warriors need someone to…as_sist_ them." The last two words took on an almost inquisitive cadence.

"Fear not," said Nayru. "Our children are, as you say, born of war."

"Ex_cel_lent. I made…clear my terms of…agreement in the message I sent you, yes?" the man asked Nayru.

"Crystalline."

"I take my leave." The man placed his teacup on the table, bowed to Nayru, for whom he seemed to have the most respect—_Finally_, Farore thought,_ some trait he shares with normal creatures!_—and, as he walked away from the goddesses' thrones, faded from existence.

Farore stared. Nayru continued to sip her tea. Din's own cup fell from her hands, shattering against the marble. After her mouth stopped hanging open, she blinked several times in rapid succession, and turned to her sisters, her expression one of bafflement.

"Did we just have tea with—?"

"Yes, sister," Nayru said. "Yes ,we did."

~—~

Elon heard the newcomer before seeing him. He whipped around and pointed his spear in the direction of the clunking boots from the stairwell, ignoring the alchemist's mutterings about _how can he be paranoid about simple footsteps when the world's crashing about my ears_. The young man that walked into the cellar couldn't have been much older than Elon himself, although he was obviously much more—here Elon coughed internally—stoic than the guard. The stranger was clad in a green tunic and had a variety of incredibly lethal-looking weapons slung across his back. Elon had no doubt the elder man excelled in using every one.

"Who are you?" Elon said, voice tremulous.

The warrior offered no reply, and instead continued on his way inside the cellar, drawing his sword. Elon kept his spearhead pointed towards the other man, who…was he _smiling_? His expression—lips tugging at a smile, brows lifted ever-so-slightly—was one of reassurance. He sensed Elon's anxiety. And Elon, in turn, found himself feeling just a little more relaxed in the warrior's presence.

"And who are you, then?" barked the alchemist without turning around.

Still the warrior said naught.

"I expect Her Majesty sent you too, eh?"

The warrior nodded.

"She did," Elon said, as the alchemist, hopefully, did not have eyes on the back of his head.

The alchemist turned around at that point, regarding the warrior with lips pressed tightly together and arms crossed. "You smell of goats," he noted, his voice clipped. "Ordonian?"

The warrior nodded.

"I thought as much." The alchemist extended a hand to the swordsman. "Rien of Eldin."

The swordsman took the alchemist's hand and shook it.

"And you're not going to tell me your name, are you?" Rien said with a snort. "Fine, fine, I care not, provided you don't—"

A sudden chorus of screams interrupted the alchemist. Elon dropped his spear to clap his hands over his ears. Rien jumped and ducked, and even the silent warrior winced. The cacophony of tumult and chaos crashed and rumbled above them.

"What the hell is going on?" cried Elon.

The alchemist straightened, bowed his head, and intoned a short prayer to the goddesses. When he raised his head, his eyes were wide in fear. "So it begins," was all he said.

* * *

ZOMGASYLUMISAMAZINGZOMG. -flail- I love that CD. Oh, Rassilon, I love it. -squeaks-

Ahem.

All right, so... I just recently got completely and utterly hooked on HP Lovecraft, and I really, really want to write a crossover between Zelda (TwiPri-era) and the Cthulhu Mythos. Would anyone read it? :D


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